(Reuters) - Eleanor Roosevelt was named the greatest first lady of the United States in a survey of historians released on Saturday, while Michelle Obama, in fifth place, edged out Hillary Clinton in sixth. Roosevelt, whose husband, Franklin, served as president from 1933 to 1945, has come up No. 1 each of the five times the survey has been conducted by Siena College Research Institute since 1982. In the top finishers after Roosevelt were Abigail Adams, Jacqueline...

"You learn to be your best self by sometimes being your worst self. " Who said that first? As far as I know, I did, and I said it for the first time Tuesday, the day I decided to run a little experiment in misattribution in the quote-happy land of Facebook. I made up a "quote" that offered a little bit of Oprah-era uplift. I attributed it to 19th-century English poet William Wordsworth. I posted it. And I waited for someone to tell me I should have my college degree revoked.

Actress Rose Buckner will portray Eleanor Roosevelt in a one-woman show Saturday in Hoffman Estates. There is no charge for the afternoon tea and performance, but reservations must be made before Thursday by calling 847-882-9100. ---------- 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Hoffman Estates Village Hall, 1900 W. Hassell Rd.

Dear Amy: My youngest child is in her 40s. She is kind-hearted, a giver and allows others to take advantage of her. I applaud her attitude of wanting to be helpful, but I know she often resents the person who accepts her help because she'll text me about it in a way that lets me know she's not happy. I've told her (apologies to Eleanor Roosevelt) that nobody can take advantage of her without her consent, and have encouraged her to say no if she really feels put upon or overextended.

"The Obamas," a book on America's first family released last week, reported tensions between Michelle Obama and her husband's presidential staff and rekindled old questions on the role of a first lady. In a position with no paycheck and no clear description, it has fallen to each woman with that title to determine how to spend her time in the White House. Some have taken a more active approach than others, historians say. Of late, first ladies have publicly identified clear...

(Reuters) - Eleanor Roosevelt was named the greatest first lady of the United States in a survey of historians released on Saturday, while Michelle Obama, in fifth place, edged out Hillary Clinton in sixth. Roosevelt, whose husband, Franklin, served as president from 1933 to 1945, has come up No. 1 each of the five times the survey has been conducted by Siena College Research Institute since 1982. In the top finishers after Roosevelt were Abigail Adams, Jacqueline...

"Whoever goes into public life has got to have a hide like a rhinoceros." -Eleanor Roosevelt She was the most public woman of her era, by turns mercilessly reviled for breaking female traditions and revered for shattering useless precedents without breaking stride. Today, although Eleanor Roosevelt has been dead more than a quarter of a century, she continues to make news. Two years ago, Ladies` Home Journal put her on its list of the 25 most important women in U.S. history.

Americans have an undying fascination with political couples. Whether it's Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, John and Jackie Kennedy, Bill and Hillary Clinton or Barack and Michelle Obama, we are obsessed with prying in a voyeuristic way into public figures' private lives. But few political partnerships are as enigmatic or intriguing as that of Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, a "complex and mysterious" relationship examined by Will Swift in his romanticized dual biography, "Pat and Dick:...

In 1921 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the former assistant secretary of the Navy during the Woodrow Wilson administration and Democratic nominee for vice president the previous year, must have seemed to be a preternaturally fortunate man. Still very much in his prime, handsome, charming, wealthy and well-connected (he was distantly related to former President Theodore Roosevelt, whose niece he had married), he had decided at an early age to emulate his eminent relative and enter politics...

"The Obamas," a book on America's first family released last week, reported tensions between Michelle Obama and her husband's presidential staff and rekindled old questions on the role of a first lady. In a position with no paycheck and no clear description, it has fallen to each woman with that title to determine how to spend her time in the White House. Some have taken a more active approach than others, historians say. Of late, first ladies have publicly identified clear...

Criticism of Hillary Clinton as brash, too opiniated and over-powering of her husband reminds me of Eleanor Roosevelt. Many saw the same attributes in Mrs. Roosevelt who, through history's lens, is one of our most effective and beloved First Ladies and who remains among the most prominent women in American history. I`m not saying Hillary Clinton is another Eleanor Roosevelt. But before we criticize, let's remember that there's more than one model for a successful First Lady.

— With a new book portraying Michelle Obama as an assertive force within the White House, the first lady has challenged the notion that she's "some kind of angry black woman. " Obama, entering the fourth year of a mostly gaffe-free White House run, made the remark in an interview aired Wednesday with CBS' Gayle King, a friend. A careful and largely admired first spouse, Obama gives media interviews sparingly. And although some people have criticized how she is...

"Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself." --Erich Fromm "I know who I am." --Miguel de Cervantes "You are whoever it is you're pretending to be." --Julian Barnes "I am I plus my circumstances." --Jose Ortega y Gasset "We learn who we are and then live with that decision." --Eleanor Roosevelt "The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums." --G. K. Chesterton "I celebrate myself." ...

Powerful women today -- Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi -- don't hold a candle to Eleanor Roosevelt in terms of how they'll be remembered by historians, a number of experts say on the eve of what would have been the former first lady's 125th birthday. "I can't think of anybody equivalent to Eleanor Roosevelt," said Jessica Michna, who will portray the social justice advocate at a fundraising party in Huntley for the American Association of University Women. "She was such a star on the...

Ethel C. Phillips, 89, of Chicago, an executive with the American Jewish Committee and former aide to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, died Monday in Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital. She had lived most of her life in New York City but moved to Chicago in May 1997. Mrs. Phillips was a speechwriter for the Roosevelts and later served as an assistant to Eleanor Roosevelt when Mrs. Roosevelt was a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life By Joseph E. Persico Random House, 443 pages, $28 An offhand comment by Eleanor Roosevelt to her mother-in-law in 1920 -- " 'Did you know Lucy Mercer married Mr. Winty Rutherfurd two days ago?' " -- masked what was probably the most painful emotional trauma of her life: the discovery of a wartime affair between her husband, Franklin, then assistant secretary of the Navy in the...